Engine Tick

[SG Lou]

My 04 does it. 26000 miles.

Mine too but I have 54,000 miles on it.
On cold starts it's the old piston slap / hyd. lifters. After it warms up It's the sweet sound of the injectors.

 

[froggy47]

Here is vid my 04 ls6 45k miles, what I call NORMAL engine sound, all stock.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TUNwseXxyFQ

BTW I autox/track the car so it sees plenty of high speed & wot. I sometimes think the cars with odd engine sounds are ones that don't get driven much or driven hard. I would go with a good bg44 type top end cleaning for those with a mild "knock/rap". That first vid that junkman posted (the loud rap) has a real problem.

 

[SG Lou]

Here is vid my 04 ls6 45k miles, what I call NORMAL engine sound, all stock.


MVI_1907.AVI - YouTube

That's pretty much the way mine sounds too !

 

[Toms007]

Me too, and mine has 82K on the clock.

 

[6 Shooter]

I'd swap it out for an LS7...

​

 

[LT4man]

I have one of those antique C4s with the LT4 engine. With over 125,000 miles there are no "ticks".

SAVE the WAVE!

 

[Hib Halverson]

The earlier Gen3 V8s (97-01) may exhibit what engineers call "cold piston knock" and what laypeople may call "piston slap". A "normal" instance of cold piston knock will produce a "ticking" or "clicking" sound which is very much like what you may hear from injectors or rocker arms but the noise will reduce in loudness then go away shortly after start up.

In 2002, changes in block machining and the addition of piston skirt coatings reduced instances of this problem.

Case of cold piston knock as described above are merely an annoyance to some but pose no reliabiilty/durabiilty problem.

That said, if the noise is very loud or it persists as the engine reaches operating temperature, there might be a problem with the engine, ie: "excessive" piston knock or some other issue which causes noise.